Best Food Processor
Our pick
Cuisinart Custom 14 Cup Food Processor The best food processor This is one of Cuisinart’s most basic models, but it consistently chops, slices, and kneads better than any other food processor we’ve found for under $200.
$255 from Walmart 250 from Amazon 250 from Home Depot
Cuisinart’s Custom 14-Cup Food Processor we like for its simplicity. The 14-cup model is simpler to use than other models that have multiple settings and more bowls. You will find the basic kitchen tools you need, as well as a couple of disks and accessories. This food processor also has a straightforward interface, with just two buttons, and one bowl. Its simplicity, however, doesn’t mean it sacrifices performance. In our tests, the Cuisinart tackled a multitude of chopping, shredding, and blending tasks exceptionally well, and it’s built more solidly than other processors in its price range.
We are the right people to trust
Two best-selling food processing authors were consulted to help us identify the key features of a good food processor. Jean Anderson is the James Beard Award winner of Process This and Norene Gillet is the author of The New Food Processor Bible. Both authors were early adopters, purchasing their first Cuisinarts shortly after the company introduced the appliances, in the 1970s. Together, the authors have spent many hours using multiple machines. In our efforts to choose which models to test, we also looked at reviews from other publications, such as Serious Eats , and examined user reviews on Amazon, Macy’s, and other sites.
Michael Sullivan works as a senior writer for Wirecutter. He has written about food processing since 2016. For this guide, Sullivan has spent many hours chopping cheese and making mayonnaise. This guide builds on work by Wirecutter deputy editor Christine Cyr Clisset.
These are our Top Picks for Food Processors
Cuisinart 13 – Cup Stainless Food Processor Best Compact Model
Best If Money and Space Are No Object:
There are many food processors available, just like so many other kitchen appliances. They come in a variety of sizes, prices, and features. And while Cuisinart can claim the original food processor it’s probably the brand your mom has and told you to buy there are several other brands that are worth a look, depending on your needs. We have a few favorites that you will love, regardless of whether you are looking for something simple for basic cutting and mixing or an upgrade to your kitchen.
We updated this guide in February 2021 with a new Best Compact Model. The original selection, Cuisinart Prep 9 9 Cup Food Processor, has been discontinued. In September 2019, Cuisinart discontinued the product from their original story. Many products we tested in our initial testing are still favorites. Check out our latest favorites.
Cuisinart can be described as a food processor’s Kleenex. The model we prefer is no wonder. The design is smart and straightforward; clearly a lot of thought went into pre-troubleshooting.
You can double your pie crust recipe with the large 13-cup container. A smaller bowl, a 4.5 cup bowl, is also available for the processor to handle small tasks. The slicing blade adjusts to 7 different thicknesses and the reversible shredding blade allows for fine or coarse grating. To make things easier, even the manual has a spiral bound cover.
Best Compact Model: KitchenAid 7-Cup Food Processor Amazon
There are three speed settings for this processor: high, pulse, and low. These functions allow you to adjust the control according to your task. It was able to quickly and easily dice an onion and grind Parmesan in just a few seconds. We were able to make pie crusts with it. However, if you’re making emulsions or need to incorporate ingredients fully, like with pesto, it may take a longer to process on the high setting than more powerful models. Thanks to the clear instructions, installing the reversible shredding and slicing disc was simple. You can easily cut half a zucchini using the included plastic food pusher. One thing to note: the feed tube isn’t very wide, so if you’re processing a lot of vegetables or fruit at one time, be sure to cut them accordingly and perhaps allow for a little extra time.
This processor was easy to use, thanks to its simple design. The work bowl clicked into the base easily. While the flip-up lid locks easily over the work bowl and feed tube, the food pusher inside often falls out.
Best Food Choppers
Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus DLC-2A
Take-away from CR: This 3-cup Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus LLC-2A chopper combines solid performance and great value. We found it to be particularly good at peeling Parmesan cheese and cutting onions. Other choppers could do a better job at pureeing. If you are short on counter space, this model will work well. It takes about the same amount of counter space as a postcard.
It earns an Excellent rating for cutting, making vegetables that are uniformly sliced. However, it is only average in terms of pureeing. The machine is smaller and lighter than the brand-name counterpart, weighing around 12 pounds. It measures in at 15 inches tall. The motor and parts are covered by a warranty of three years. Available in white.
Take by CR. Our 500-watt KitchenAid 1318BM food processor scored high in our tests. Of the big guys, it’s the lightest weight, tipping the scales at just 8.3 pounds (less than half the weight of the Breville and Magimix listed here). You can store the unit in a cabinet or lift it for each use. Warranty coverage is for one year.
Home cooks. Our chopping and shredding tests give the 12-cup food processor Very Good scores. Puréeing is its only weakness. It was not able to make peas perfect smooth. The hefty 950-watt machine weighs 17.5 pounds and comes with all the extras: mini chopping bowls, a dough blade, a shredding disc, a grating disc, a blending attachment for liquids, a whipping attachment, and a case to keep them organized. The warranty lasts three years for parts and 30 years for the motor. You can choose from chrome, white, cream and red.
Ninja Master Prep Professional QB1004
Review by CR: Although the Ninja Master Prep Professional QB1004 has a smaller 2.5-cup size, it’s far more versatile. This set includes a larger processing bowl (5 cups) and a blender jar (6 cups). This chopper has a top-mounted motor, which you can pull down to activate. We gave it a Very Good rating because of its ability to chop and produce well-chipped vegetables, nuts, and other food.
Oster Versa Pro Series BLSTVB-104-000 Food Processor Attachment
Our take: Although the Oster Versa Pro is smaller than some food processors, it should still be sufficient if you don’t need to make large batches of hummus, or shred pounds of potatoes. You get two appliances in one with this set, which also contains a blender jar. A processor attachment provides solid performance for many tasks. The best in chopping and slicing and shredding. Oster Versa Pro is just over 6 lbs and 15 inches in height. The guarantee is good for seven year. Available in black
Thermomix
Cuisinart image credit. Sharp knives will make it easy to chop vegetables or prepare a delicious dip. You will often find attachments to help you shred cheese and carrots, slice cucumbers and potatoes, or even make a pastry dough.
Home-cooked food is healthier and often a lot tastier than store-bought alternatives, but it can be time-consuming to prepare your ingredients from scratch. The best food processor will help you out on those days when you don’t have the time or the energy to chop by hand. Some of our top choices are also available as part of kitchen systems with attachments that rival best blenders.
When buying the best food processor, you should consider the capacity that suits you best. We have included models with as much as 14 cups of chopping space, but these can take up more room on your kitchen counter, so if you are only cooking for yourself and a partner you could definitely go for something a little smaller. This list includes food processors by Ninja, KitchenAid Magic Bullet Cuisinart and Breville.
Here are some reasons to avoid
The Thermomix TM6 is like no food processor we’ve ever tested before, but it’s a truly multi-functional cooking appliance that not only chops veggies but cooks them too.
It’s why we love it
The Thermomix TM6 has been designed for busy families who have a family-oriented lifestyle. You will get freshly cooked meals with minimal effort.
Highlights Attachments can perform many other tasks than just food processing. They are capable of slow-cooking and steaming. This is not the right tool for novice chefs, and it may seem a little excessive for those looking for top food processors.
How We Test Food Processors
Good Housekeeping Institute’s Kitchen Appliances and Technology Lab constantly tests food processors to determine how easily they are able cut onions, chop parsley, make mozzarella cheese, shred carrots and other vegetables, and slice tomatoes and make dough. We also take note of how quickly each model performed these tasks and how much food was left unprocessed.
It is a combination of how useful the user’s guide is and how easy it is for the blades, chutes, and lid to be assembled. We also evaluate the ease of using the controls, the usability of them, the range of settings available, as well as the cleanliness.
From the over 75 options we tried, the Breville SousChef is our best pick for 2021. It is top-of the-line in terms of performance. The Sous Chef features a super-powerful motor, a microserrated s-blade and an adjustable slicer, with 24 settings. These include paper-thin, thick-cut, reverse shredders, dough blades, etc. It passed all tests, including slicing and mincing parsley.
These are the best food processors that you can purchase:
Best food processor for pastry chefs:
According to chefs, is the
Our Pick
“>Best Food Processor
Best Food Processor Blender Attachment:
Best Food Processor Blender Combo:
Methodology
You can test seven different food processors with capacities ranging from 9 to 14 cups. You can create an amazing range of dishes faster, simpler, and easier with a food processor. This is a great tool for pesto and salsa making. It is perfect for large batches of cooking. This machine quickly cuts the cold fat from flour, giving you the perfect pie crust. It can quickly knead pizza dough and also makes a smooth sauce for topping it with tomato sauce. It chops onions, makes bread crumbs , minces herbs, grinds beef into hamburger , and even whips up fresh mayonnaise in a minute flat.
Cuisinart Custom 14 14 Cup Food Processor. This has been our trusted choice in the kitchen. With newer competitors, however, it was time for us to determine if the Cuisinart Custom 14 14Cup Food Processor still holds its own. We bought a fresh copy of our previous favorite and six competing food processors, priced from about $35 to about $350, with capacities from 9 to 14 cups and put them through more than a dozen tests, assessing how well they performed and how easy they were to handle, use, clean, and store. We also evaluated their capacities, noise levels, and the usefulness of their accessories.
Level Of Control Varies From Model To Model
The S-shaped blade on a food processor should be capable of cutting, mixing, and puréeing food into any consistency that we require. Some machines had difficulty chopping celery, carrots, onion, and celery into thin strips for mirepoix. These are the basic ingredients for many soups. Watching as vegetables bounced in the bowl of the least efficient machine caused us to be amazed at how long it took for them to start cutting. We ended up with pieces of carrot and celery that were too big, and even pieces of onions and other vegetables that were softened and almost liquefied. A few machines chopped the vegetables well but still left us with a few carrot knobs that we had to finish cutting by hand. Our previous favourite model was the only one that quickly cut perfectly uniform pieces.
The first, and most significant factor was the responsiveness to the pulse function. Second, the location of the S-shaped S-shaped chopping edge relative to both the sides of the bowl and the bottom was important. The pulse functions of weaker performers started smoothly but kept running for a few seconds after we released the button, leaving some foods overchopped and others uncut. With the highest quality models, we noticed that the blades acted quickly after pressing the pulse button. When released, they stopped immediately, which allowed us to chop food much more efficiently. We also noted that models with blades that reached closer to the bowls’ sides and sat closer to the bowls’ bottoms performed better, likely because they engaged food more efficiently. The distances between the blade tips and bowl sides of the models we tested ranged from 2.9 millimeters in a high-ranking machine to 6.1 millimeters in our lowest-ranked model more than twice as much of a gap. These gaps were between the bowl tops of the models with the highest ranking scores from our trio of high-ranking machines and between their blades. In comparison, the lower-ranking models had gaps of 3.0 to 5.8 millimeters.
Some food processors come with a large box of extra blades and attachments, but we’ve found that the majority of food-processing tasks can be accomplished with just three blades: those for chopping, slicing, and shredding. The winning model has all three blades stored in the same place.
Ideal for shredding and slicing
The KitchenAid KFP1133CU 11 Cup with ExactSlice Systems KitchenAid is an iconic brand. While its stand mixers are loved, it’s hard to say the same about the food processors. KitchenAid’s 11-cup Food Processor model performed well but was slow at blending or chopping. The attachments are plentiful and you’ll be able to shred or slice different amounts of food with the multiple discs.
Hummus made with this model had a smooth, well-blended consistency with even flavor. Five pulses with the chopping edge were enough to create hummus for my pico verde vegetables. Also, it processed almond butter easily. Although the machine heated up quickly in the time it took to turn the almonds into butter, it left me with some questions regarding the motor. Although the KitchenAid model has an auto shut-off that prevents motor burnout, I was still nervous by the heat.
Shredding and slicing are where KitchenAid really shines. The shredding disc can be reversible and the externally adjustable slicing disk corresponds with a slider at the base. This allows you to get very specific slices.
You also get a storage bag to keep all your blades safe. The classic design is timeless, and it can be ordered in many finishes. The finish you choose will affect the price.
.Best Food Processor
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